Pulitzer Prize board to clash over awarding Snowden reporters

The judges in charge of handing out Pulitzer Prizes this year are considering the journalists who worked closely with former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and the secret documents he disclosed, POLITICO reports.

Dylan Byers of the Washington, DC-based newspaper wrote on Thursday this week that his outlet
can confirm that two teams of reporters involved in the
dissection and dissemination of the National Security Agency
files leaked to the media by Mr. Snowden last year are among
those being weighed as possible recipients of a Pulitzer in 2014.

According to Byers, the panel is considering Glenn Greenwald,
Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill for their reporting at The
Guardian on the NSA’s bulk metadata collection program, as well
as another team composed of Poitras and Barton Gellman, who
together worked on the covering the spy agency’s PRISM program
for the Washington Post.

Reporting from both The Guardian and the Post last June were
among the first — as well as arguably the mostly widely discussed
— to rely on NSA documents disclosed by Snowden to expose a vast
and previously secret surveillance apparatus operated by the US
intelligence community and the spy agencies administered by
America’s allied partners.

Those reports each sparked global discussions about the role of
the NSA with regards to the world’s digital and cellular
communications, and prompted the White House to assign a group of
experts to reevaluate the agency’s operations. In December, that
five-person panel recommended the US government consider dozens
of changes to the metadata collection program and others.

But in his article for POLITICO, Byers reported that “The
politically charged debate surrounding the National Security
Agency’s widespread domestic surveillance program, and the man
who revealed it, Edward Snowden, is certain to prompt intense
discussion for the 19-member Board as it gathers to decide this
year’s winners, according to past Board members, veteran
journalists and media watchdogs.”

Indeed, the fact that those reports stem from documents illegally
leaked by Snowden have caused many officials to laud the former
contractor as a traitor, and US House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) — a staunch proponent of the
spy programs — referred to the journalists involved in that
reporting as “accomplices” during a Capitol Hill hearing
last month.

“What they’re trying to do is to remove it from the realm of
journalism, so that they can then criminalize it,” Greenwald
told POLITICO last month in response to Rep. Roger’s
remarks.

In his report published this week, Byers claimed “the risks
are manifold, and there is no easy answer” for the Pulitzer
committee when it comes down to considering the NSA stories for
this year’s award.

“Honoring the NSA reporting — particularly in the coveted
category of Public Service — would inevitably be perceived as a
political act, with the Pulitzer committee invoking its prestige
on behalf of one side in a bitter national argument,” he
said. “Snowden, who is living in Russia, is facing three
felony charges in a criminal complaint filed by the Justice
Department.” And just earlier this week, Rep. Mac Thornberry
(R-Texas) claimed during a hearing in DC that Snowden is
responsible for "damage done to our national security having
nothing to do with NSA."

“Yet to pass on the NSA story would be to risk giving the
appearance of timidity, siding with the government over the
journalists who are trying to hold it accountable and ignoring
the most significant disclosure of state secrets in recent
memory,” Byers added. “It would also look like a willful
decision to deny the obvious: No other event has had as dramatic
an impact on national and international debates over state
surveillance and individual privacy.”

According to others, though, the Pulitzer board needn’t bother
making a determination about the lawfulness surrounding the
Snowden disclosures. Dan Froomkin, a former Post reported who now
works at Greenwald’s new venture The Intercept, tweeted:
“Politico wonders out loud if Pulitzer jury might side with
those who think journalism is a crime. I think not.”

Politico wonders out loud if Pulitzer jury might side with
those who think journalism is a crime. I think not. http://t.co/DE6hwG1i45